


Fifteen Love: Of Tennis, Lawyers, Hideki Ryuga and other Oddities.

by Starbroken



Category: Death Note & Related Fandoms, Death Note (Anime & Manga)
Genre: M/M, no death note au, tags to be updated as fic goes on
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-02
Updated: 2017-11-09
Packaged: 2019-01-28 05:00:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12598752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starbroken/pseuds/Starbroken
Summary: Teru Mikami is a successful junior prosecutor at only age 24. His life is filled with books and he has no social existence to speak of. - Light Yagami is 20, Japan's best college student, and effortlessly adored by his peers. Secretly, he is bored and yearns for higher intellectual stimulation. - The To-Oh University Tennis club is made up of only 5 people and in dire need of another member. They've caught wind that a former champion attends their very own school.Their paths intersect, but the lives of stubborn people aren't changed so easily.





	1. A Revolution in the Kitchen Sink

**Author's Note:**

> I've had a very long writer's block and fell out of the habit completely in the end, so this is my first attempt at a multichapter story in a very long time. To get back into the swing, I've decided to self-indulgently write about all my favourite things, so here's a Death Note romcom centered around Light, Mikami, and a bunch of side characters. Special thanks to casuistor for helping me come up with this title!
> 
> I don't know anything about tennis, but I'll be doing furious googling.

The empty coffee cup won‘t budge from its place in the sink, no matter how much time Teru spends staring it down. Dark blue, ceramic, tangible,used; it refuses to change any of these attributes even under utmost scrutiny. Teru has bought the cup himself, he remembers the department store. For a moment he tries to recall the exact amount of yen he had paid for the set of identical cups that this one came in, but even conjuring up the memory of the store receipt doesn‘t make the offender feel less like a foreign object. It‘s Teru‘s cup, undoubtedly, but he wasn‘t the last one who used it. 

Teru Mikami - age 24, junior prosecutor in Tokyo, Japan - has had a visitor.

This in itself does not sound all that jarring. It certainly doesn‘t seem to warrant a 10 minute meditation session over one‘s kitchen sink. However, for Teru, this single inconspicuous coffee cup marks a turning point in his adult life. 

Earlier that day, at 5pm local time, had been the first time anyone but him had ever set foot into the new apartment he had rented 2 years ago. What had been a space only for himself, entirely devoid of the influence of strangers, had opened itself up to someone else. Offered someone else coffee, a seat, even a good book.

None of that happened without Teru‘s agreement, of course, but in hindsight he feels dazed by his own hospitality. He turns the faucet handle and lets a cascade of water wash over the remnant of Light Yagami‘s visit.

____

"Welcome home," the backrest of the couch greets in the voice of Sayu Yagami as Light steps through the doorway of the living room of the Yagami residence. The idol music chiming from the television speakers is less inviting. Light raises an eyebrow.

"Weren‘t you going to go to sleep early today? I distinctly recall you saying something about exams and being well-rested for them."

"Dearest brother mine, your definition of early is simply too radical." Sayu‘s head rises up so she can give Light an accusing look. "There‘s early and then there‘s ‚so early you miss the live concert transmission‘. Only one of those is acceptable."  
Her tone of voice does not give any room for objections. While her obsession with idols has toned down considerably since she began high school, she has yet to give up on her record-worthy followership of Hideki Ryuga‘s career. Light knows for a fact that only two of her high school friends are aware of this. 

"Anyway, didn‘t the café close a few hours ago? I thought you were going to meet that prosecutor there." Sayu props her face up on the backrest and gives her brother a curious glance. Apparently whoever is singing on TV now is no longer the main act, so she has time to play cross-examination about Light‘s social life. 

"He invited me home, actually. Mikami-san has a very impressive private library. Were he anyone else I‘d say you wouldn‘t guess by looking at him, but.... if anyone looks the part, it‘s him."  
Light had been planning to go straight up to his room, but now he finds himself walking around the couch so he can flop down next to Sayu.

"... nerd-stuff, huh? And here I thought you might have been out doing something exciting." Sayu feigns disappointment, but quickly breaks into a smile. "So you had a nice evening?"

"Interesting for sure. He‘s kind of an odd guy, to be honest. Very smart and well-spoken in court, but... If you had seen his home, I bet you‘d have been creeped out. Very clean, very... sterile. He seemed a bit freaked out every time I threatened to move something, though he did his best to hide it."

Light smirks at the memory. Maybe he should have been creeped out as well, but Teru Mikami hadn‘t struck him as the dangerous kind of weirdo. Just a recluse who seems to only fully exist inside the courtroom - in private, it felt as if part of the man was permanently absent, left behind at the office door. In truth, Mikami hadn‘t invited Light as much as Light nudged the invitation out of him. Though his primary objective in approaching Mikami had been to make some contacts in his field, the longer he spoke to the man the more mischievous curiosity had risen.

"You sure know how to pick your friends, Onii-chan." Sayu pokes his side playfully. "I know you‘re going to be the best detective in the future, but that doesn‘t mean you have to lure the killers to you personally."

"Well, I can‘t count on dad to deliver them to me forever, can I?" Light laughs. His father‘s position in the NPA had certainly given him a headstart into his criminal justice career. Though unofficially, he‘d been helping with cases since his early teen years and he first testified his observations in court when he was 15. It had been another witness testimony that allowed him to see Teru Mikami in action; the young promising prosecutor in charge of the case. 

"Speaking of dad, are he and mom not home yet?" Light glances behind him as if he might have overlooked them sitting at the dinner table.

"Nope, their date must be going reeeally well. To be honest, I‘m relieved. It‘s been months since they did something for the two of them, mom was starting to look somewhat frustrated about it."

Light has to agree with Sayu. Where the rest of the family is frequently out of the house to pursue a career or social life, Sachiko Yagami has been cooped up inside with the housework for far too long. She may enjoy taking care of her family, but with her son busy with college and her daughter growing up rapidly as well, the work-related absence of her husband must have made her feel more lonely than usual.

"That‘s great. Maybe you should be a good daughter and head to bed now before they come home and have to worry about you being up so late before your exams."

Sayu huffs. "You say that as if you had ever taken it that seriously..."

This is what makes the siblings different. While both work hard for their academic careers, only Light has his efforts rewarded richly. The same amount of preparation would catapult Light to the nationwide number one while it would only earn Sayu a decent upper middle rank in her school listings. When Sayu was still in middle school, Light used to spoil her with his help in homework matters, but they‘re no longer little children now. There‘s a glimmer in Sayu‘s eyes when she outdoes her own expectations and seeing that has made Light want to push her past her previous limits. The era of cozy piggybacking is over now. Though there is no comparison between their achievements or even their career paths, Light still finds himself thrilled whenever the more serious and goal-oriented side of his little sister surfaces. Though he had always loved Sayu and they‘d always gotten along amazingly, he‘d never seen a day coming when he would be able to truly relate to her. Only 3 years separate them in age, but secretly Light had always felt way older than Sayu. It‘s only now that she seems to be catching up to him. Slowed by idols, stumbling through teenage years, but steadily.

They don‘t wind up saying goodnight to each other for half an hour after that. Sayu has a way of derailing things that even Light isn‘t immune to. 

 

When he‘s finally back in the privacy of his own room, Light looks over the book he‘s nabbed from his new acquaintance. Flipping through it reveals pristine pages, none of them in any condition that would suggest someone had read it before. Light knows better. Mikami had given him word by word quotes as they were sipping their coffees. Quoting came easier to Mikami than even simple gestures of hospitality like offering a seat to Light. If he hadn‘t seemed so tense, Light would be tempted to call him robotic. 

A soft chuckle on his lips, Light opens his flip phone and boots up his email programm. 

____

It‘s 6:45am when Teru turns on his phone for the first time that day. That‘s routine. Before this precise moment in time, he doesn‘t exist for the world. Getting out of bed and having breakfast are sacred routines during which Teru only half exists as a human being. Nothing and nobody can dare interrupt them, Teru is invulnerable to human interference entirely.

On 6:45am Teru becomes Prosecutor Mikami, he opens his phone, tightens his tie and meticulously puts papers into a suitcase.  
Prosecutor Mikami doesn‘t usually get any messages overnight. Checking is a pointless habit performed for the sake of being thorough. Knowing this, there is only one thing Teru finds himself able to do when he is greeted by the blinking email icon. He blinks back.

In his mind, a million emergencies play through that could have occurred while he was getting his necessary and well-deserved rest. There are at least 3 criminals who could have escaped, one witness who could have fled the country, a defense attorney who...

His brain still rattles through the list as his fingers open up the ominous message. 

"...oh."

It‘s not a crisis in the strict definition on it, but maybe a social life is an emergency all of its own.

____

from: lightyagami@yahoo.co.jp  
to: trmkm1882@yahoo.co.jp  
time sent: July 24th, 23:32:07

subject: Thanks

Evening, Mikami-san!

Sorry for messaging you at this hour, I got sidetracked by my little sister when I came home. I just wanted to thank you again for lending me that essay compilation. I looked into it further on the train and it was most interesting. Parting with your well-guarded book even for a while can‘t have been easy. I‘m honored to have your trust like that.

I‘ll be finished reading in around a week, if you want to meet up and discuss the contents.

Greetings,  
Light Yagami


	2. Sheep Bait

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to Fifteen Love where the chapters are made up and narrative flow doesn't matter. I am having fun writing again for the first time in a very long time, so I hope the result is still reader-enjoyable.
> 
> None of the characters in this chapter are technically OCs even if they may seem this way to you. 
> 
> Kyoko Takatsuki is the Kyoko from canon, the girl who finds L attractive.  
> Satsuki Shimamura is her unnamed friend who thinks she's bonkers for this.  
> Yasunaga, who's first name I have yet to headcanon, is the tennis club captain from the manga.  
> Seijirou Kawamura is the kouhai who informs him about Light and L's match in the manga. Thanks to princedarcy for the name here!  
> And finally Takao Sawada is what I dubbed the one who functions as referee at L's and Light's match.
> 
> I wasn't kidding when I said there were gonna be a lot of minor characters in this fic, haha.

Silence hangs over the clubroom like black smog emanating from the heads of everyone present. The air feels oppressive, though in reality the window is opened and an uncharacteristically fresh summer breeze flutters in from the bright day outside. Kawamura taps his feet against the floor nervously. Tap, tap, tap. Over and over and over and --

"Will you stop that?!" Satsuki finds her voice sounding just a little too loud and too shrill. Awkwardly, she clears her throat. Kawamura looks caught and doesn‘t meet her eyes.

"I mean... it‘s too early to panic, right? The semester isn‘t even over. We have all summer vacation and a good while after to recruit new members - that means we have a huge headstart. We shouldn‘t just sit around worrying about club sign-ups passively. ... right?"

Satsuki‘s eyes travel from club member to club member, seeking support. The journey starts out excessively unsuccessful. 

Kawamura still seems intimidated, though he dares a small nod. He‘s a third year at To-oh University, same as Satsuki. Since the first semester they‘ve barely shared classes, but with the amount of tennis club activity that they are in together, Satsuki is fairly sure she sees him more than her actual classmates. 

Kyoko is making a similar expression. Her joining of the club had only been voluntary if Satsuki‘s insistent nudging over half a year doesn‘t count as coercion. Kyoko and Satsuki had gone to the same high school and they were the only two students of their year to successfully complete the To-Oh entrance exams. Though they‘d never spoken beforehand, this made them naturally flock together as soon as the first semester started. If someone had told Satsuki that Kyoko Takatsuki, infamous for strange taste and very little filter, would wind up being her best friend, she‘d have laughed. How childish she had been.

Sawada‘s face is unreadable, which is his default expression. Stoic, good-looking, a little mysterious. Whether he‘s approving of her words or just spacing out, Satsuki can‘t tell for the life of her. Though Sawada is a fourth year student and has been in the club ever since Satsuki joined around two years ago, she doesn‘t feel they have been getting any closer as people. Or farther. Putting Sawada into a word, he‘d be ‚reliable‘. Just that.

And then finally... Yasunaga. The club captain is eyeing Satsuki intently and she finds herself flooded with relief that someone was actually listening properly. Silence falls back onto the room. Now that Satsuki has met eyes with someone properly, they‘re locked in a weird impromptu staring match. Who will speak first? Satsuki is out of things to say. All she can do is defend the honor of her position with the strength of her gaze. 

After the susprising move of the Igarashi siblings a few weeks prior, the tennis club had been left with nobody but the five of them for members. Tennis might have been big at To-oh once upon a time, but with the state being as is, the patience of campus administration is running thin. The tennis court takes up a good amount of space on campus after all and even though external clubs rent it for practice, the sorry state of the university‘s own tennis team 'makes it seem like a waste of space'. That kind of word choice doesn‘t leave much room for favorable interpretation.  
'Disband'. The word hangs in the air unspoken, tearing down the atmosphere to the novelty lows of the current situation. 

Yasunaga‘s hands crash down on his thighs with a slap that seems to resound through the quiet room. Satsuki flinches visibly. She hadn‘t even noticed him raising his arms, lost in thought and staring as she was. 

"Shimamura-kun has a point. I‘ve been in this club for too long to see it shut down without a fight under my leadership. We need a hook, we need to respark the passion for tennis."  
With the surplus of enthusiasm for the sport that Yasunaga has to offer, one could assume this to be a task he‘s well-suited for. One would be gravely mistaken. Precisely because Yasunaga loves tennis so much, he is utterly incapable of conveying it properly. The idea of being uncertain about tennis just doesn‘t fit into his head. People who need convincing to start with may as well be aliens to him. Though he‘d never put it that way out loud, his opinion is plain to everyone who knows him: you either like tennis or you‘re wrong.

"A hook..." Sawada raises his hand to his chin thoughtfully. "Easier said than done. The biggest perk to the club we have is tennis itself and that is evidently not working. Do we need a mascot?"

"A platypus, maybe," Kyoko chimes in from her corner. Before Satsuki can even give her an accusing look, she breaks into a shy giggle. "That‘s obviously not the solution, but it would be cute, wouldn‘t it?"

"... if we had an own mascot, wouldn‘t we just interfere with Ichiko‘s job, anyway?" Satsuki murmurs and earns a shrug from her friend in response. Ichiko is the university mascot.

Outside, students start heading for the train station. Their chatter as they pass by the window makes the room feel livelier than its inhabitants.

"---!!!"

For a few seconds Satsuki remains convinced that the erratic gasp also came from outside, but as everyone else‘s eyes fix on Kawamura she follows suite.

"Yagami!"

If it was meant to be an explanation, it sure doesn‘t live up to its purpose.

"Huh?"

"What?"

"... why him?“

"Nevermind the why, who is that?"

It‘s Satsuki‘s turn to gasp, this time incredulously. "Yasunaga-senpai! You... you don‘t know who Light Yagami is?"

He doesn‘t look shaken by her accusatory tone. "Should I?"

This time, Satsuki has support on her side. Kyoko, Kawamura and even Sawada nod in sync with her. 

She huffs. "He‘s only the top student of the university?! Full points on his entrance exams and he‘s hardly deviated from that standard since! If you were to name a king of this campus, it would be him without even a shadow of doubt.“ 

"Satsuki thinks he‘s cute," Kyoko adds helpfully.

Gracefully, everyone else ignores the comment. Kawamura clears his throat: "That‘s all true, but it‘s not what is so important about him. This whole time I thought his name was kind of familiar, but it somehow never clicked with me. I remember now."

"Remember what?" Sawada tilts his head, clearly lost.

"Tennis. He used to be champion at it, that is. When he was in junior high, he won the national title for his age group two years in a row - 1999 and 2000 or 2000 and 2001 or something."

The group exchanges awkward glances. Every one of them would love to say they knew this, but it‘s also plain that none of them did. This leaves them a lttle shamefaced and puts an embarrassed damper on the intended effect of the revelation.

It‘s Yasunaga who recovers the fastest. That isn‘t surprising. Yasunaga‘s interest in things has always been kind of selective. If it isn‘t about tennis technique or his major (biochemistry, as it happens), then chances are he neither knows nor cares about it.

"So... let‘s get this guy. If he‘s really so famous and so dreamy, we need to get him to join first at the sign-ups, so everyone else will follow him like sheep."

A grin spreads over Yasunaga‘s face. Whether it‘s that or simply the cold air from the outside... Satsuki shivers.

It seems like an interesting summer lies ahead of her. 

______

 

Light‘s nose twitches and he can barely manage to turn away from the table properly to hide his face in his arm before the sneeze escapes him. When he looks back up, Mikami is looking at him like a startled rabbit.

"Bless you," he utters with a second too much delay.

Light smiles. "Thank you. And rest assured, I don‘t actually have a cold, the sun just tickled my nose." In his thoughts he adds: 'So there‘s no need to douse me in disinfectant as you seem ready to do.'

Mikami‘s reaction now only cements the impression Light had gotten from the man‘s dustless flat last week. Light appreciates cleanliness as much as the next person, but Mikami made even his mother look like a slob. Briefly, Light entertains himself with the thought of Mikami in an apron with a feather duster in hand.

"Ah, I was just thinking that I wouldn‘t want to have called you outside if you weren‘t feeling well." Mikami takes a deep breath and shakes his head a little. "I‘m glad you‘re in good health."

Light doesn‘t believe the concern for his wellbeing at all, but he has to admit that this is a smoother save than he‘d have thought Mikami capable of.

The two of them are seated at a nice window-side table in a café right around the corner from the prosecutors‘ office building. Mikami is on his lunch break from work and thus still dressed in his formal suit. The few weeks they‘ve known each other, Light has never seen him in casual clothing. The permanent air of formality around Mikami makes him respectable in trial, but outside of it he appears like a carricature of himself. 

"Yes, sorry about that. I know you‘re a busy man, I wouldn‘t want to put you at risk of illness either." This early into a connection is certainly too soon to commit what may well be regarded as a personal attack by the other party. 

Mikami nods, entirely seriously, then checks his watch.

"So.. as we were saying, the next time I‘ll be free will only be after the trial in the Sato case, but afterwards... ah.“ He pauses for no apparent reason, his finger playing around with the handle of his empty cup. "You‘re welcome to pick another book from my library, if you‘d like. Since you had expressed that inclination over mail."

Light can‘t help feeling satisfied that he successfully baited Mikami into initiating the verbal planning phase. 

_____

Elsewhere in Tokyo, a heated debate has found no conclusion, so everything is decided by a rock-paper-scissors tournament.  
"Well captian," Satsuki says, "We might as well have decided by rank with this outcome."

"Congratulations on your skills," Kyoko adds.


End file.
